Here we go again. No sooner had the northern run-off reached Sukhothai province in upper Central Thailand than the chorus from the dam hungry politicians began again for the construction of the Kaeng Sua Ten dam in the Mae Yom River basin.
The first politician to come out to blame the Sukhothai floods on the lack of dams on the Mae Yom River in Phrae province was Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Theera Wongsamut.
As a reminder, it was Mr Theera who last year ordered officials to delay releasing water from the Bhumibol dam so rice farmers in Suphan Buri could do their harvesting first. Suphan Buri is the constituency of Banharn Silpa-archa, the de facto leader of the Chart Thai Pattana Party. Mr Theera's decision was blamed for the accumulation of the huge, destructive water mass that later ravaged provinces downstream. A policy mistake of this magnitude would prompt the resignation of politicians elsewhere. Not here.
As the prospect of a new flood becomes more threatening, Mr Theera said he was willing to consider building two smaller dams on the Mae Yom River due to fierce local resistance to the Kaeng Sua Ten dam. Not his boss, however. Mr Banharn used the Sukhothai flood panic to immediately push for the Kaeng Sua Ten dam again. The call was promptly echoed by Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi who is in charge of the government's flood management plans.
In the face of the politicians' scare tactics, it is timely to review some facts about the Kaeng Sua Ten dam and why it has failed to take off since it was first proposed two decades ago.
Aside from resistance from locals who want to preserve the 60,000 rai of forest that includes rare golden teak and protect their way of life, the main arguments against Kaeng Sua Ten are very straightforward. It is simply too dangerous to build a dam on an active earthquake fault line. Also, it is plain senseless to destroy a vast pristine forest to build a dam that could do little to prevent flooding in the Mae Yom River basin and downstream.
Apart from being too small, the dam is too far upriver from the Yom valley, according to a Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) study. Research findings show that the Kaeng Sua Ten dam can contain only one-tenth of the water in the Bhumibol dam and ease only 8% of the water run-off.
Other research, including by the Thailand Research Fund, Thailand Development Research Institute, and the Good Governance for Social Development and the Environment Institute, similarly concludes that the Kaeng Sua Ten dam is economically unsound.
The Yom River has more than 70 tributaries which are interconnected in a web of waterways. Regular dredging of canals and swamps, the building of dykes and small reservoirs along the tributaries, the elimination of barriers to water run-off, better land use zoning _ all these can help mitigate the flood problems without destroying pristine rain-catchment forest and uprooting thousands of families.
With its eyes fixed on the money-making dam project, however, the government has failed to put in place these cost-effective flood prevention measures in the Mae Yom River basin. It is why people in Sukhothai are now suffering from the deluge and why people downstream are holding their breath. Instead of pushing for a megaproject that should not be built, the government must start carrying out realistic and comprehensive flood mitigation solutions. The first thing it must do is shelve the Kaeng Sua Ten dam for good.